"K 







CopjiightS?. 



A 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



THE VANISHED WORLD 



BY 

DOUGLAS DUER 

fi 




BOSTON 

SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 

1916 



^^ 






NOV 17 1916 



Copyright, 1916 
Sherman, French &' Company 



CI.A446454 



>t^ I 



TO 

E. M. H. 

THEIR CRITIC AND FRIEND 
THESE POEMS ARE DEDICATED 



Note 
For permission to reprint some of the 
poems here included the author is indebted 
to The Century Magazine. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/vanishedworldOOduer 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Vanished World ....... 1 

A Grecian Dancer . 4 

The Merchant 5 

Frieze of Pompeii . 7 

Phryne's Fountain 12 

The Last Phoenicians 13 

A Song of Lethe 14 

HERTHA 

Hertha 17 

Aloha Oe 18 

Out of the Deep 19 

Indian Song 20 

A Canary 21 

An Orchid 22 

THE UNDYING FIRE 

The Undying Fire 27 

Haroun's Song .28 

Persian Love-song 29 

Arabesque .30 

The Sword-song of Kieran 31 

Truth 32 

Finale 84 

THE PURSUERS 

The Pursuers 37 

A Woman of Samaria 38 

Black and Gold 39 

I Remember a Night 41 



PAGLIACCIO PAGE 

Pagliaccio 45 

The Hour of Sleep 46 

The Storm-cloud 47 

Dusk Song 48 

In an Orchard 49 

The Winter Moon 50 

Vaucluse Hill 52 

The Full Cup 53 

Vale 54 



THE VANISHED WORLD 



THE VANISHED WORLD 

On other altars newer sacrifices 

Are heaped forever to a changing name ; 

Others the hands that bear the balms and 

spices — 
Only the spirit that heeds them is the same 
Which looked on you, when hand in hand you 

came, 
Phantoms of youth! with flowers heavy and 

pale, 
And aromatics for the tapering flame 
Which now no more the fanes of earth exhale: 
Faint are those ecstasies which knew no leaven, 
Perfect in earth, being ignorant of heaven. 

Then breathe to tell us that no loves are lost ; 
Or still unbreathing, touch our dreams to say 
Where float those petals on the river tossed 
Of rolling time; what harbour is your stay? 
Why all those passions if no other way 
Guide the descending feet of perished men 
Than that which leads to withered silence grey, 
Ending in dust and loveless earth again? 
The most we bode, and all that ruth will give 
Is, having loved, it was enough to live. 

And if by any pool I cup my palm. 
Bending to watch the circles it has made 
Corrode and shiver that grave shining calm, 

[1] 



And so diverge, and spread, and smooth, and 

fade 
Till the last ripple in pure light is laid: 
There I perceive the hand that moved me on 
To run my way, to trace my gleam and shade: 
In those same waters were your passions drawn, 
And there obliterated, and are grown 
Poignant and clear, being mingled with my own. 

It may be that such ripples clove the glass 
Of midnight-bosomed and slow-moving Nile, 
Where the great painted barques were wont to 

pass 
To sound of many zithers, with the guile 
Of living limbs — the dark, the deathless smile. 
Inscrutable and stirring through all years 
To eyes of lovers. From the templed isle 
The lamps are vanished : the mute column hears 
Not one resonance of that vibrant choir 
Chanting of gods, and men, and man's desire. 

The laughter of warm voices in strange tongue 
Mixed with that music : the faint, opiate airs 
Blew softly where the spiring censer hung. 
Or fanned with secret breath the agate flares, 
And all was beauty, heedless of all cares. 
Pleasure on pleasure the spelled sense reviving: 
Dreams with our waking, love with our de- 
spairs. 
Now charmed beyond the clasp of any striving; 
[2] 



A myriad stars glowed from the purple plain 
On many breasts that beat to one rich strain. 

Hour of all hours ! To hear the waters move 

Beneath the sliding all-but-silent keel: 

To grasp the fruitage of delight: to prove 

The heart and redolence of life: to feel 

With each breath drawn, the cheek to which 

you kneel 
Grow warm, and flush, and press upon the lips ! 
It is the lotus-potence which you steal 
From that ecstatic bloom whose chalice drips 
A moisture drawing sleep on the closed eyes ; 
Sleep, and a robe of dreams beyond surmise. 

And what are men, to cast away a flower 
The rarest of their life's brief coronal: 
The freshest, fullest, blooming for an hour 
And ever after lost? Could they recall 
The transient time when the earth's best is all 
Beneath the palm, to pluck or leave unknown — 
Then might they pass it by, or let it fall ! 
One moment lives for each, and one alone: 
The cup is fullest once, the lips are kindest, 
The eyes are brightest — let them not be 
blindest. 



[3] 



A GRECIAN DANCER 

Pyrrha, whose footsteps, gleaming in the 

dance, 
Adorn the air and paint upon the wind 
With sinuous rhythms richly intertwined 
The glory of youth and amorous romance: 
To you, flushed goddess of the mirthful 

glance, 
The rioting cymbals clash their jocund song; 
And cytharas loud, with all the choral throng, 
Bear up your feet as on the wings of chance. 

Surely it is the flickering torch that flings 
This vision on the night ! Those lips that 

burn, 
Those limbs that flash, were marble or blown 

dust 
A long age gone, and into darkness thrust 
That wind-wild hair — or else the lost return. 
Borne by the rising rapture of the strings. 



[4] 



THE MERCHANT 

Beauty for beauty would I give and take — 
So rich a silk for such a worth in gold; 
Fine ivories of the South, and gems that break 
The dimmest ray to glories manifold. 
Crystals have I, and Persian jars that hold 
A thousand thousand roses thrice distilled ; — 
Beauty for beauty, fairly weighed and told — 
Rich gems — fine jars with precious attar 

filled! 
I have bought amber in the northward seas. 
Rare woods in Lebanon, gold-dust in the Sands ; 
From Tyre to Carthage has my prosperous 

prow 
Rolled up the foam ; and yet it was but now 
That Lydia passed me, singing! Many lands 
Hold not the wealth to barter love for ease! 

Like a faint cameo is her face, as when 

The rose-red lava blushes through the white. 

These Greeks have skill to carve it! Other 

men 
Have only pow'r to buy. The tunic slight 
Blew with the movement of her foot-pace light, 
And clung and fluttered on the slender thigh. 
Over the busy quay, and so from sight, 
With one half-wondering glance, she passed me 

by. 
That was but yesterday — yet in my sleep 

[5] 



It seemed two thousand years ago she passed 
With curious look and amphora held high ! 
I saw the crowded purple of the deep, 
Smelt the warm spice-bales, felt the spell she 

cast; 
And yonder dark Phoenician — that was I ! 



[6] 



FRIEZE OF POMPEII 
I 

INVOCATION 

The breath of your lost laughter warms 
My cheek ; close to the verge you press, 
With the faint fragrance and the rosy forms 
Of long-gone loveliness. 

How have I sought those viewless ways 
To your white shrine I What burning prayer 
Mingled amid the birch-smoke, in your praise 
Cast out upon the air 

Come, Beauty! Soul of high desires, 

Pure goddess clouded from our strife ; 

Touch but one strand among the breathing 

wires 
And wake my song to life ! 

II 

In many a sealed vase enurned 

The ashes of old passions lie; 

Dust is the flame of many a cheek that burned, 

And many a limpid eye ! 

Sappho the Lesbian sleeps alone, 
Never a kiss to break her rest; 
Vanished her feet from the spray-girdled stone. 
And cold her white-rose breast. 
[7] 



And there no maids pursue, nor any 

Weave the violet rope, nor smile ; 

Through the blue ripples roll her tears to many 

A hyacinthine isle. 

Ill 

Shake now the gold-dust in your hair 

And bind the bracelets on your arms ; 

The guests are gathering in the shade ; prepare 

The banquet of your charms, 

Glycis ! That other eyes may feast, 

Nor ever cloy, upon the store; 

What dawn has broken when my lips have 

ceased 
To cry in vain for more? 

Yet ah ! the days — the hours — are few 
That youth provides her best. Not long 
Shall I be thirsted for the cup that you 
Divide to all the throng. 

IV 

Down breasted slopes the streams run chill 
With snows that fade in brake and byre ; 
Now year-forgotten languors touch and thrill 
The founts of new desire. 



[8] 



At such an hour the sleepy faun 

First feels the sun-stir in his blood. 

And rolls and stretches on the forest lawn; 

Or tip-toe through the wood 

He skips, to seek those slanted eyes 
That mocked and fled his late awaking; 
Tread softly, shepherds ! lest your steps sur- 
prise 
A sylvan marriage-making. 

V 

High on the cliff the reapers rest 

Embosomed in the fragrant grasses ; 

Lithe, laughing, sunburned girls, who dream 

the quest 
Of each far sail that passes. 

They say that, seen between the blades, 
A ship of Tyre is no great thing; 
A purple butterfly alights, and shades 
The galley with his wing. 

When you and I have found a place 
Lower than grass, how great will seem 
Wreaths of the forest, or laurels of the race — 
Those argosies we dream? 



[9] 



VI 

At passion's budding, the gods know 
The fruit, and smile at us who stand 
Beneath, alas ! where love and hunger go 
Forever hand in hand; 

Or where a forked doubt flames up 
Tumultuous from the burning mouth, 
Withering like cinders from the crater's cup, 
Parching with fiery drouth 

Those fields of hope and plenty, tended 
So long with deep and careful thought ; 
Lo ! the bright orchards ravaged, the boughs 

rended. 
In ashes come to naught! 

VII 

The fountain spurts, the waters mount 
Unending in a crystal spray ; 
Then fall to feed the sources of the fount. 
There to repeat the play. 

Above the rest a sparkling single 
Drop is cast ; another follows, 
Flying to clasp it close and intermingle 
Ere yet the basin swallows 



[10] 



The flight of both. Since both must be 
Engulfed at last, O would that I 
Might clasp you, Glycis ! while my soul is free 
To love, and yours to fly. 

VIII 

Under the noon-tide's brooding glow 
Broad fields lie quivering to the heat. 
Where now I see the death-red poppies grow 
In the life giving wheat; 

The flower of Sleep, whose crimson bowl 
Holds many a dream, but none so strange 
As that we live in, where the waking soul 
Moves in a mist of change. 

Dissolving from the out-reached palm 
Laurels, or beauty, or desire: 
Enfolding all things in the final calm 
That quells our mortal fire. 



[11] 



PHRYNE'S FOUNTAIN 

Today the Spring awoke by Phryne's fount, 
Where olive leaves and dusky cypress blent 
With orchard boughs o'erbent, 
Wave by the waters that forever mount, 
Wave o'er the streams where once I dwelled 
content. 

Phryne the fair, whose shame and sweetness 

blushed 
In the petal-curved lip, or looked and hid 
Beneath a violet lid. 
Or warm and rose-red from the deep heart 

rushed 
To mask with flowers all the wrong she did ; 

Phryne, whose breast the cherry blossom cup 
Full brimmed with dew, could teach no sweeter 

scent. 
The idle noon-time spent 
By this cool flood forever welling up — 
The waters took her sweetness where they 

went. 

That roses by the river-lip might learn 
How to beset their beauty with a snare. 
And iris growing there 

Colour without scent's virtue; moss and fern 
To hide the cruel rock uncouth and bare! 
[12] 



THE LAST PHOENICIANS 

They call us pirates up and down the seas — 
Thieves of their women — all the names of 

hate 
And fear : yet in the days when Tyre was great 
We brought them comforts, taught them how 

to please 
Their smoky Gods with incense. On their 

knees 
In ignorant fear they watched us beach our 

ships : 
We taught them Letters, and their thankless 

lips 
Curse us from Dacia to Hesperides ! 

Now that the belly of the Tyrian sail 
No longer takes the wind, they cast us out. 
Or worse, come down to meet us with the sword ; 
They mark the dwindling argosies, and hail 
Our fading force with festal song and shout: 
" The Lion dies, and Jackal is the lord! " 



[13] 



A SONG OF LETHE 

Velvet soft her silence is, 

Cool and deep^ — 

Such tranquillities of bliss 

Hath no mortal sleep — 

Such a dark, delightful stillness, 

Quelling sorrow, care and illness ! 

Over limbs that placid lie 

Lethe-stream, 

Ever murmurous, passes by, 

Lulling all to dream; 

With her monody low-swelling. 

Subtile, stealthy, sleep-compelling. 

Neither light nor dark is here 

Only dusk: 

Neither hope, nor love, nor fear — 

Only, sweet as musk. 

Cool as snow in mountain-hollows — 

Silence, where no tumult follows. 

Here are those who must forget their 

Paradise ; 

Wonder weird of what they met there. 

Death to mortal eyes ! 

On the marge of Lethe lie 

Many shadows such as I. 

[14] 



HERTHA 



HERTHA 
A VIKING SONG 

To Hertha, whose breath is the wind, 

And whose thoughts are the stars in the sky, 

Who created the mole to be blind, 

And the hawk and the eagle to fly — 

All thanks for the force that abides 
In the head and the heart and the hand ; 
Waes hael! to the power that guides 
The prows of the long-boats to land. 

For the song and the sting of the spray. 
For the blue and the green and the white. 
For the sea-labour lusty by day 
And the red-litten pillage by night: 

For the pleasure of seizing or giving, 
For revelry, peril, and strife. 
For all that is zestful in living: 
Drink Hael ! to the Mother of Life ! 

O Hertha ! well done ! who created 
The raven to fly and be free — 
The gull and the surf to be mated, 
And wedded the Norse to the Sea ! 



[17] 



ALOHA OE 

So rich the rose, so fair the sky, 
I win no sleep, howe'er I lie: 
While through the open window floats 
From musical and many throats 

An island melody ; 
Aloha oe, they softly sing, 
In chorus to the throbbing string. 

The burning stars, the garden white. 
They beckon in the balmy light ; 
I know not where my want is found, 
But there's a longing in the sound, 

A fever in the night ; 
Aloha oef the rich guitar- — 
The fainting rose, the fevered star! 



[18] 



OUT OF THE DEEP 

The water where our shadows lay 
Was bottomed in a crystal bay, 
Where overside ten fathoms deep 
The ruffled sponges lay asleep, 
And the mute fishes gleamed and passed. 
A soundless world completely glassed 
Lay weltering in liquid light, 
Along the sands beyond our sight. 

And there a castled coral lies. 
Where fishes with their cold clear eyes 
Go streaming through the watery ways, 
And fade like dreams in the bright maze: 
The netted shadows cross and weave 
Among the finny lanes they leave. 

Ten fathoms down the corals reach 
Their branches from the hidden beach; 
And there at the green island's foot 
The seed of all its life had root. 



[19] 



INDIAN SONG 

Through the cold of the snow, 
Through the heat of the sun; 
South where the deserts glow, 
North where the rivers run; 
East where the spices blow, 
West where the day is done — 
Whither my love may go 
There shall our bed be one. 

Has he not suffered long? 

Is not his passion true? 

He bore pain with a song, 

Love he shall never rue ! 

Lonely, he thought no wrong; 

Falseness he never knew; 

Lo ! Where one heart was strong 

There shall the hearts be two ! 



[20] 



A CANARY 

SINGER from the Fortunate Isles of Old, 
Whose rapid and clear chant on Teneriffe 
Rose ringing, or fell seaward from the cliff 
Down rough Hierro's promontories bold : 

It bodes but ill that minstrel visions hold 
The wide winds, and the plunging sun-warm 

seas ; 
What is the guerdon? Fetters for your ease, 
And brassy barriers for your gift of gold; 

And bitter days, if all the truth were told, 
And lonely nights, that make the song more 

shrill ; 
The maddening want — the never-ceasing ill — 
The bursting flight by circumstance controlled 
To frenzy: yes, and that last rapture thrill 
For worth of passing pleasure bought and sold. 



[21] 



AN ORCHID 

Centuries of growth and rot 

Make her bed: within the glooms 

Of her own tangled, fever-hot, 

Still, stifling wood she blooms — 

Flower evil and most fair, 

Writhed lips and silken form 

Flaunting lure for all who dare 

The brazen sun, the sudden storm, 

The stench and steam, the chill and warm 

Of her miasma-haunted lair. 

In the dim recesses hid, 
Having not her root in earth ; 
Battening on decay, amid 
The death that gives her birth ; 
Where the jaguar stalks his prey 
And the gaudy snakes lie sleeping — 
Every hour of night and day 
Creatures torpid, flying, creeping. 
Triple death-watch round her keeping. 
Bid her lovers come to stay. 

Where the burning cheek grows thin. 
Where the palsied finger shakes. 
Her wanton bed she makes : 
Where the flaming eye sinks in. 



[22] 



Flares upon the reeling sight 
Like a fever-phantasy — 
Dances in the dizzy light 
Strange, delirious, wild, awry — 
Seems to lure, to mock, to fly, 
Fall and fade in shuddering night! 



[23] 



THE UNDYING FIRE 



THE UNDYING FIRE 

The stars like torches kindled are 
And sparkle thick in splendor, 
Each burning in his silence far 
The prisoned song to render. 

And down their deep the night-wind blows; 
I tremble to the breathing 
That stirs the rich wild climbing rose 
Around his trellis wreathing. 

In his bright bloom the fires of earth 
Are tossing, flaming, burning; 
There's more of life in this wild night 
Than in a year of yearning! 



[27] 



HAROUN'S SONG 

Sweet sounds I make beneath your window 
gable, 
Rich chords, but low ; 
For thus, and thus, the too full heart is able 

To say what moves it so. 
Sweet sounds I make, and tremble in the 
making : 
Sleeping are you, or waking? 

Feel where the coverlet, light-folded lying. 

Moulds forth your breast: 
Is there no tumult there, no secret crying 

To trouble that warm rest? 
Did I not speak — were this my music dumb, 

Still you would hear, and come ! 

Still you would wake, by force of this my pas- 
sion 
That shakes me so : 
The fire that scathes my soul in such a fashion 

Still must you feel and know: 
Still must you know the winds that search 
and sear. 
The longing and the fear! 



[28] 



PERSIAN LOVE-SONG 

My young love's eyes are like a lighted shrine; 
Her breath, warm roses' breath at brooding 

noon: 
Her lashes bind my heart with silken toils 
On her breast's altar, where I lie and suflFer; 
Yea — my heart's blood wells up in sacrifice — 
I swoon and die, because she is not mine ! 

All the long night my heart-strings to her touch 

Throb the song of passion exquisite. 

Her little fingers with rose-petal nails 

Move swiftly in and out those pulsing wires. 

Ah ! the long sigh that shakes me like a sob — 

It gushes from the very core of life! 

Nightly I seek her where the night wind seeks 
The ceaseless-rustling tassels of the maize: 
How can I know if this be love ? Alas ! 
The days are years, and night-time bare of 

sleep ! 
The sun at noon, the flaming stars at night 
Look down in mirth to tell me " This is love ! " 



[29] 



ARABESQUE 

One there comes in silence fleet 
Swiftly on the velvet sod ; 

Lays a tribute round your feet, 
Feet of light with silver shod, 

Slender feet with silver shod! 

One is here whose earthly frame 
Trembling in the flames of earth 

Bursts at last to living flame; 
So a rose hath had its birth, 

Passion's rose hath had its birth ! 

Secret are the shining stars, 
Secret is the silver light. 

Dark and deep the shadow-bars - 
Let me see your eyes tonight. 

Let me know your love tonight ! 

Here is life and here am I; 
All the sweets you brood upon 

When the midnight breezes cry 
Breath of life and love are one — 

Breath of life and love are one ! 



[30] 



THE SWORD-SONG OF KIERAN 

Make sharp the sword, Kieran! Let no stain 

Be on the blade. A little blemish mars 

Her whispering song, her song of love and 

pain. 
Her wrathful sword-song underneath the stars ! 
I'd have her bright, as when a high moon bars 
The blue ^Egean with a glittering path : 
I'd have it clear, her song of strife and scars. 
Her whispering song, her song of love and 

wrath ! 

trembling hand! dost thou hold back from 

this 
Thy kindliest action, and thy last . . . but 

one? 
Is it too fair, that breast thou knowest of? 
Take up the eager blade ! Thou bringest bliss 
After a little pain. O tears, be done ! 
Tonight a sword shall wed me to my love. 



[31] 



TRUTH 

Hope that was born of a flower, 
Truth that came in a night, 
Love that was mine for an hour. 
Promise of dim delight, — 
Gone from the reach of my power 
Out of my touch and sight — 
Gone like a summer shower. 
Gone like the winter light! 
Hope that was born of a flower, 
Truth that came in a night. 

Petals as white as death. 
Pale as the mountain snow, 
Sweet as the spice-isle's breath — 
Vanished where all must go ! 

Oh, if a hand I know 

Had left me but this to keep ! 

A weal in the day of woe — 

A dream in the death of sleep ; 

A bloom where the tares must grow, 

A flower where the thorns must creep,— 

Dear flower that stirred me so. 

Seed of the pain I reap ! 

Would that a hand I know 

Had left me but this to keep. 



[32] 



Petals for brightening eyes, 
Petals for quickening breath, 
Petals for hope that flies. 
Scattered and blown in death! 



[33] 



FINALE 

I HAVE turned away from the sun 

And set my breast to the earth: 

My day is faded and done — 

Now at the last I am one 

With the Mother that gave me birth : 

She has darkened the stars and the sun. 

Air, take my breath for your own — 
Water, the blood of my frame ; 
Earth, let my body and bone 
Root in the tree and the stone ; 
Lastly, spirit of flame 
Mingle my fire with your own. 

I have bartered a transient sigh 
For the sweep and space of the air; 
Flood and mountain am I, 
Flower and field and sky. 
Fires that flicker and flare — 
All for a transient sigh! 



[34] 



THE PURSUERS 



THE PURSUERS 

My speedy chariot through the night 
Unflagging rushes to the goal — 
A storm of steel in eager flight, 
A force without a sense or soul; 
The furious wheels resistless roll, 
And faster, faster hurl we on — 
Our only hail a brazen toll 
That scarce awakes, ere we are gone. 

Oh, ne'er so sure of wild success 
The mortal, mad, eternal race 
To make our limits less and less. 
And join the ends of time and space! 
But what avails the frantic pace. 
The linked force of steel and fire? 
Or gain or lose, at last we face 
Denial of the mad desire. 

For close upon the nightly wind 
Our shadowy, fleet reflections ride. 
And fly we like a ghost or fiend 
Those mocking shapes are still beside ; 
Though fierce and swift we reel and glide, 
Though red the toiling stoker delves. 
Our shades are with us, stride for stride — 
We cannot hope to lose ourselves! 



[37] 



A WOMAN OF SAMARIA 

Too well I know what the voices mean — 

The tale of the mart, the cry in the street, 

The whispered word and the grin unclean 

That follow my weary-moving feet — 

I am what they will not forget 

Who kept their girlhood clean and free — 

A woman of the street, and yet, 

The Christ's own hand fell soft on me. 

Bitter it is to feel and know 
I love the life I now must lead — 
The thrilling glare, the flaunting show, 
The painted craft, the shallow greed: 
Yes, I could find it in my power 
To laugh and burn my life away, 
But that there comes a little hour 
Between the fevered night and day, 

In the chill dawn, perhaps, or blown 
Down the still pave, when one by one 
The beacon street-lamps wink alone. 
The day's work ended, mine begun — 
Then like a knell of death I hear 
" Thou art forgiv'n : go, sin no more ! " 
For whither can I take my fear. 
And who will bide the leper's sore? 



[38] 



BLACK AND GOLD 

Scent-smoke thick and blue 

Coiled and rolled 

And sickened the close air 

Between us two ; 

I, in the lacquer chair, 

(Heavy of breath) 
And over the table of black and gold 
A white face, 
A drawn face, 
A face of death. 

Dragons in that place 

Crawl and glide 

On the table's lacquered black: 

But the pallid face, 

Terrible, called me back. 

Heavy of breath. 

Whithersoever my look would hide, 

To its blank eyes. 

Its dull eyes. 

Its eyes of death. 

Slang of the city stye, 
Craft of the gutter — 
Crying the wares which now 
None came to buy : 
Greed of the sunken slough. 
Foetid of breath; 

[39] 



Hunger and squalor, swift to utter 
A low price, — 
A cheap price, — 
A price of death. 

Failing the trade, to tell 

(Merry with food) 
Of the thing unborn, yet dead. 
That late befell. 
It cost me a ten, she said 
With snarling breath; 

Bui I loved it the same — the crawling brood! 
And a wry grin, 
A mad grin, 
A grin of death. 



[40] 



I REMEMBER A NIGHT 

I REMEMBER a night when the low late moon 
Rose in a pallor of mist from the world's dim 

verge ; 
Under the wood-edge a cicala's choir was in 

tune 
With a teeming sound, like foam on a faraway 

surge. 

Hard by the foot-bridge, dim in the mist-robed 

field, 
An odor of honeysuckle flowed in the air, 
Sweet and piercingly sweet, like a face revealed 
Or a voice heard of one awaiting me there. 

And all the ways of a winding path to the 
wood. 

Breasting a vaporous lake in the lonest of 
hours, 

I walked in the marvellous peace of a love un- 
derstood. 

Hand in hand with the passionate spirit of 
flowers. 



[41] 



PAGLIACCIO 



PAGLIACCIO 

Child of those lovers, mortal mirth and woe, 
Poor Pagliaccio, fool and lover both, 
How often have I laughed, and left you loath. 
Not dreaming that your play was mingled so 
With prayers and creeping dread; or that the 

show 
Of gaudy silks could hide so red a heart — 
A mind so tantalized and torn apart — 
A soul so taunted of the powers below. 

And look ! the laugh, the kiss, the sudden 

blow — 
The flaring lights, and frightened faces round 
A stained and sinking forai — oh, well I know 
That rising, ringing cry ! The knife has found 
A lovely sheath ! Aha, Pagliaccio ! 
Your heart was breaking then — I know that 

sound. 



[45] 



THE HOUR OF SLEEP 

Sleep, I lend you now in trust 

This, the flower of my dust. 

Every ill I may have done, 

All the hurts to me unknown, 

Mortal chills of care and doubt. 

With your warm walls close them out. 

She has wants beyond my ken 

(Being but a man of men) ; 

Secret modesties innate. 

Senses quick and delicate; 

Who can tell if I have trod 

Loudly, in that place of God? 

There is none but me to read 
Her unuttered, wistful need. 
Christ, that anything so good 
Gives to share my every mood. 
Thou dost know if I have meant 
Any end but her content! 
Joy instinctive and divine, 
Love beyond removal mine. 
Trust that no foreboding shakes. 
These await me when she wakes ; 
Not from the world's wrong alone 
Must I keep her, but my own. 



[46] 



THE STORM-CLOUD 

The red, red star of battle is glowering in the 

West, 
The sky morose and secret, with thunder 

brooding low ; 
The hosts are massed and breathless for the 

sudden trump to blow — 
Look now, thou Lord of Tempest, who bear 

their weapons best! 

In the last hush of waiting, our faces gloomed 

and grey. 
Through the far moan of waters we heard a 

voice of dread, 
That moved among the pennons, and soft and 

sombre spread 
Thy word of wrath relentless, " Spare not — 

spare not — but slay ! " 

Red, red the star shall lower upon the tempest 

cloud — 
The stream shall rush and revel, full fed with 

ruddy life ; 
And Thy avenging spirit shall walk amid the 

strife 
With panic and disaster, till Baal's neck be 

bowed ! 



[47] 



DUSK SONG 

Witch's bat and whip-poor-will 
Wheel about the furrowed hill: 
Dusky wood and crooked wing, 
Plodding hoof and tuneful chain; 
Hark ! the whole earth murmuring 

Home again. 
Barn or cot in equal measure 
Hold for all our hard-won pleasure. 

Faint, exquisite, scarce displayed. 
Rest's rose-tinted sickle-blade 
Hangs above the cottage roof. 
Vesta ! reap the field of pain 
While we guide the laboured hoof 

Home again; 
Rest the reaper and the drover 
When their daily work is over. 

Toilers to the cottage call. 
Bring the oxen to the stall: 
Then, betwixt the lamp and star 
Draw the lover down the lane: 
Hale the husbandman afar 

Home agam: 
Grant the children of thy soil 
Love for labour, sleep for toil. 



[48] 



IN AN ORCHARD 

Jack. Come, my Joy ! and kiss me now. 
Jill. Guess my place, or else — away \ 
Jack. There, beneath the bended bough. 
Jill. Here, behind the foamy spray. 
Jack. How the rosy light within 

Flushes through that snowy screen! 
Jill. Lest the moth his dance begin 

Leave the lacy branch between. 
Both (aside). 

Yet how sweet, so close to be. 

Pent within the cloudy tree! 
Jill. Humming-bird and golden bee 

Cling upon the cloudy bough — 
Jack. Laden, too, with sweets are we: 

Come! and taste their pleasures now. 
Jill. Some, too careless of the feast. 

Swoon upon their downy bed. 
Jack. Saddest, those who drink the least — 

Richest, those the fullest fed. 
Both. Oh, how sweet! the kisses deep, 

Lulling to the tranced sleep! 



[49] 



THE WINTER MOON 

At the chill of the twilight, when the red moon, 

the round moon, 
The wonder moon of wanderers, rose above the 
road — 
All hoary-set and white 
In the ancient light 
On hedge and roof and scented rick the gems 
of winter glowed. 

How keen through the lustre of the rose moon, 

the rich moon. 
By hill and dale to my lone ear the breath of 
sighing came ! 
Oh, soft was the moan 
From the southward blown — 
But earth and heaven breathed it like a great 
^olian frame. 

There was rime on the furrow, by the full 

moon, the frost moon ; 
The long grey grass turned silver, the road 
rung to the heel; 
And I thought in the chill 
So keen and still. 
How hears a heart that once I loved the hitter 
frost I feel? 



[50] 



A long, long journey by the great moon, the 

gold moon, 
A journey by the cold moon that beckons on 
above : 
Oh, south by her glow 
To my home I'll go. 
And rest my breast at daybreak on the bosom 
of my love. 



[51] 



VAUCLUSE HILL 

Between the roadside and the full-grown 

wheat 
There is a place, secure and shadowed still 
As when I rested here, those seven complete 
Strange years gone by. Beyond, the curving 

hm 

Yet ripples to the sun ; and musings fill 

The wind-blown oaks, my counsellors of old 

hours, 
Which murmur yet their monody, and thrill 
With hints of incommunicable powers. 

Six harvests garnered from the generous field, 
And one that waits the reaper — yet no change ; 
Six robes down- fallen from the trees, to grow 
And spread once more. Of all the scene re- 
vealed. 
There is not one thing altered, lost, or strange, 
Even to the grief I left here long ago. 



[52] 



THE FULL CUP 

If this night were the last of my life's dream 
It would be full, through having felt my clay 
As one with the rich earth, the low star's gleam, 
This murmuring of wet leaves, this change and 

play 
Of odors and small sounds. I would repay 
My rivulet to the source wherefrom it wells. 
Dwell in the dusk, not heedful of the day, 
Being content; desiring nothing else. 

If this night were the last, it would be full, 

Feeling the life-tide that envelops mine, 

To know my being a ripple on the pool, 

And to perceive my image in the shine 

Of vagrant worlds, that time nor change can 

rule, 
And only the dim deeps of space confine. 



[53] 



VALE 

Let this humble verse at least be yours 
Since I must give no more, beloved mine; 
A slender tribute, yet the stumbling line 
Must hold a volume that my soul outpours. 
Hearken a little : soon the prison doors 
Close on my singing — will the dumb words 

then 
Have power to move you? Will they speak 

again 
As once / spoke, and be my orators? 
Do not mistake me: bitter days will come 
And nights too long by many an hour unslept ; 
Times when chance phrases that so long are 

dumb 
Ring in the memory ! Let these words be kept 
Living to tell you when my lips are numb 
How bright a love into the dark has crept. 



[54] 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 

PreservationTechnoIogies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



